• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

Air-water interfacial area is of great importance for the analysis of contaminant mass transfer processes occurring in the soil systems. Capillary bundle model has been proposed to estimate the specific air-water interfacial areas in unsaturated soils. In this study, the measured air-water interfacial areas of a soil (loam) using the gaseous interfacial tracer technique were compared to those from capillary bundle model. The measured values converged to the specific solid surface area (7.6×104 ㎠/㎤) of the soil. However, the simulated air-water interfacial areas based on the capillary bundle model deviated significantly from those measured. The simulated values were substantially over-estimated at low end of the water content range, whereas the model under-estimated the air-water interfacial area for the most of the water content range. This under-estimation is considered to be caused by the nature of the capillary bundle model that replaces the soil pores with a bundle of glass capillaries and thus no surface roughness at the inner surface of the capillaries is taken into account for the estimation of the air-water interfacial area with the capillary bundle model. Subsequently, appropriate correction is necessary for the capillary bundle model to estimate the air-water interfacial area in soils. Since the soil-moisture release curve data is the basis of the capillary bundle model, the model can be of use due to its simplicity, while the gaseous tracer technique requires complicated experimental equipment followed by moment analysis of the breakthrough curves. The size distribution profile of the pores filled with gas estimated by the water retention curve was found to be similar to that of particle size at different size range. The shifted distribution of gas-filled pores toward smaller size side compared to the particle size distribution was also found.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.7
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• pp.549-555
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• 2015

A measurement technique of interfacial velocity in air-water separated flow by particle tracking velocimetry using an infrared camera (IR-PTV) was developed. As infrared light with wavelength in the range of 3-5 um could hardly penetrate water, IR-PTV can selectively visualize only the tracer particles existing in depths less than 20 um underneath the air-water interface. To validate the measurement accuracy of the IR-PTV technique, a measurement of the interfacial velocity of the air-water separated flow using Styrofoam particles floating in water was conducted. The interfacial velocity values obtained with the two different measurement techniques showed good agreement with errors less than 5%. It was found from the experimental results obtained using the developed technique that with increasing air velocity, the interfacial velocity proportionally increases, likely because of the increased interfacial stress.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.3-13
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• 2001

It has been known that nonlinear characteristics of sorption affect the transport behavior of water soluble pollutants in soils. However detailed experimental studies have not been performed to verify the effect of non-linearity of adsorption isotherm on transport of chemicals in porous media. In this research, the distortion of breakthrough curves of a cationic surfactant (cetylpyridinium chloride, CPC) in a engineered stainless steel column packed with glass beads were investigated. Glass beads with about 110 $\mu\textrm{m}$diameter coated with a thin n-decane film were used as the media providing the sorption surface for CPC. The CPC adsorption isotherm on the surface of n-decane from aqueous solution was a typical Langmuir type. The breakthrough curve of CPC using step Input showed a late breakthrough on the front side and early breakthrough on the back side accordance to the shape of the isotherm. The retardation factor of CPC was found to be a strong function of the input concentration, which also a manifestation of the non-linearity of the isotherm. The retardation factors for the CPC with step input agreed with those of pulse input that the maximum concentrations are controlled to be the same as the step input concentrations. This results support the validity of the unproven field practices of using hydrogeotracers with non-linear adsorption isotherms to determine the hydrogeological parameters, e.g., NAPL saturation, air-water or NAPL-water interfacial areas.